WTF are Frothers? Not a quiche, but a protest group. Fighting for the "basic line of British decency" against fiscal brutality.

[garlicfrother]

What are Frothers?

The term "Frothers" came about one dank and dismal November day in 2011. A frustrated user of the parenting forum Mumsnet started a thread about her dismay at the cuts that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government was inflicting on the British public.

She stated that she was not "quite a frothing berserker but I am getting rather cross with our government messing with the good stuff".

The good stuff - policies, benefits, institutions that had taken years to achieve were being cut for no good reason, often leaving gaping holes in the fabric of British society.

The NHS, with which we Brits have a love-hate relationship, but like a favourite sibling, we wish to protect from harm.

Sure Start, a successful scheme that supported parents who were struggling and offered children from deprived backgrounds a better start in life.

Universal Child Benefit was cut for those families who had one earner bringing in more than £44k a year. If both parents each earn less than £44k, they keep their UCB payments. This obviously hit single parents and families with a single earner hardest.

Disability Living Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance - which enabled those with disabilities to live a decent life, without feeling that they were begging for assistance or were a burden to the taxpayer.

Student Fees, the introduction of which, contrary to Lib Dem pre-election promises, means that a whole generation of young people will have to think carefully before applying to higher education.

These and many other cuts are being made in the name of austerity. We are "all in this together", but some of us are deeper in this than others.

We all understand that there are sacrifices to be made but why should these sacrifices be borne by those who already have so little?

The general public seems oblivious of the dangers being faced, they are unaware of the injustices being wrought on the already disadvantaged.

The government is winning the war of the headlines. They have blasted the recipients of DLA and ESA as scrounger and cheats so often that the general public believe it. They misinterpret data to "prove" their points. Teachers are painted as being irresponsible and greedy, while the bankers rake in the money.

The poster on Mumsnet was not alone for long. Within a few days, a group of over 30 posters had formed. They asked themselves, "What can we do?".

The idea of a blog was born. Three days later the blog had over thirty authors signed up, a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

The Aims:

• to open the general publics' eyes to the injustices being created by the governement

• to inform those who are facing cuts about their rights

• to link with other activists and charities, in order to put pressure on the government

Are you a Frother?

Come and join us.

BLOG

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

uniteresist.org/
anticuts.org.uk/
conventionagainstfeesandcuts.wordpress.com/
falseeconomy.org.uk/
www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/

You might also be interested in
2020uk.wordpress.com/
www.economania.co.uk
www.neweconomics.org/
www.positivemoney.org.uk/

and
toomanycuts.blogspot.com

Thts it though Garlic. The media covered the Occupy site because they had to. It was too big to ignore. but they didn't give any real detail as to what they were hoping to achieve or what had lead them to such measures.

It is the same as the stop the cuts motion. They just say that we are protesting to stop the cuts, without actually explaining which cust and why. So people assume we are just moaning that we will lose our 30k (pah!) of benefits that we get to just sit on our arses.

I was reading the tgraph article about wrb and the 26k cap and how the bishops are fronting the rebellion (go them!) in the comments someone asks why anyone would apply for a 35k job if they can get 26k for doing nothing...

even if that wasn't massively simplified (people who do nothing won't get anything like 26k) it's still 9k a year more! That's not nothing - it's bloody loads!

Actually, Te, I think you've touched on a huge problem there - the blurring of the boundaries between earnings and benefits. The £26k is net of tax. The £35k job would net a bit less than that, at basic rates.

But the welfare state gives the tax back to those who need it - the very same person, doing the job with the same needs, will be entitled to enough tax rebates and benefits to leave them better off in work.

It's not surprising people don't get it, when things are so complicated. That's by no means a party-political issue: successive governments have been bludgeoned into supporting wages that are too low compared to prices. Speaking only for myself, this is the single issue that makes me most angry: businesses in the UK are benefit scroungers, and no administration has had the balls to stop it.

If push came to shove, I'd rather this happened transparently - your pay packet should show £X from employer and £Y from the state. At least people would be able to see where they're at, though it wouldn't stop them whining And the minimum wage should go up. And rent controls should be brought back.

Have added False Economy's video to le blog :)

Isnt this all about housing, which has risen because there is so little social housing?

It all goes to private landlords, not the individual.

I wonder if they will include things like healthcare and education in their next calculation. You get £XXX worth of education and £XXX healthcare, thats more than the average salary grr pay it all back you scroungers blah blah.

Its just a nasty excuse to put more people into poverty.

YES increase minimum wage garlicfrother!!!
And stop forcing the unemployed to work full time unpaid FFS!

Chicken - Yes, the healthcare vouchers are already on trial and the education vouchers have been on the cards for ages. Probably on hold while Godlike Gove rearranges the education system to suit his strange personal fantasies.

Its just a nasty excuse to put more people into poverty.

A mere two months ago, I thought this lot were just inexperienced. With each passing day, I'm coming closer to your pov. Can't do enough sad/angry faces for that.

You're right about housing, of course. A massive public housing programme would ameliorate a bunch of problems all at once: more jobs, more people earning wages, more spending going on so more jobs in other sectors, more affordable housing so fewer families living in slums, fewer benefit claimants, hey presto the ConDems can say they've saved the nation.

Why don't they do this? They can't be ignorant, so your quote above must be right ...

Clegg can fuck off as well. If he can't open his eyes we can hardly expect him to lead the country. [former supporter]

What is happening to the mortgages in public owned banks when people default? Any repossessions would surely be ideal to transfer into social housing.

They would. As would the 350,000 long-term empty houses in London. But this government is all about banks' balance sheets: numbers, not governance. The govt wants to see banks putting numbers on the receivables - and so do the banks, so they can 'justify' their bonuses - ergo, homes are repossessed and sold at auction. To private landlords, who will let them to tenants who can't afford the rents after they lose their jobs, so will claim benefits.

The government will see this, not as an opportunity missed, but as proof of more serfs whining for alms.

I just want to say.. Quietly.... That on the previous page there's a comment about "making the rich pay their fair share". Since we are all shouting for people to stop and think and not generalise a large group of benefits claimants as scroungers, can we please also not generalise ourselves.

We are lucky in our family that we both earn, and frankly both pay more than our fair share ( I feel) in taxes. My husband has a well paid job and works 60 hour weeks, but he takes home not even half of his gross salary after it's been slashed by taxes. Over the last few years his pay has gone down substantially as a result of a variety of subtle, but very effective tax changes and ni changes. At what point would he be considered to have paid his fair share?

What's worse is that he works in the public sector. So he is working to improve services for the rest of us and is very good at it.

Just wanting to make sure we don't start brandishing labels in the same way as others.... Will go and sit quietly now..

I'll read the rest of the thread later, but I am FROTHING about IDS's interview on BBC News this morning. . CHILD BENEFIT IS GOING TO BE INCLUDED IN THE UC CAP. The cap equates to a monthly benefit total of a maximum of £2,166.67pcm, regardless of whether you have one child or ten. Whether your home is in the South East and costing £900pcm for a 2-bed or not. But to include the ChB in the cap is just .

Jesus wept. I get £242.00 every 4 weeks ChB - so £262.17pcm. I am going to do some recalculations and GET THIS EFFING BLOG POST DONE. This throws me into a tail spin - including the ChB is going to make EVERYONE with children either unemployed OR working for NMW poorer. Massively so!

I think there is a distinction to be made between rich and very rich, higher rate tax is over 40k right? 40k is not that huge an amount comparatively speaking and I can see why people at that level would be feeling squeezed vas much as anyone else... but their are options available to the super-rich (reclassify who owns your million plus pound house and only pay 0.5% stamp duty, anyone?) that just aren't available to anyone else.

Which is bloody bonkers.

I think the whole tax evasion thing is important - somewhere or other didn't someone say everytime you use a tax loophole you have to point it out to the taxman. So they KNOW there are ways to get away with this stuff and they still aren't bothering to do anything about it.

Holy crap Hunty! I hadn't had enough coffee while watching it - none of it sank in.

Hello all btw, sorry for my absence! My ex has been causing some problems spying on my twitter and ringing me about every sodding thing he disagrees with he is such a knob.

I'm trying to let things die down a bit then I will make my twitter private and be able to froth a bit more again

oh, God. Hunty that is appalling.

Loobey
Set up a new anonymous twitter account

Yummy
I agree with Garlic. When people say "the rich" they are talking about those raking in several hundred thousand and higher. Not those unfortunate "squeezed middle"

We are trying to buy a house atm in Scotland and I do feel for those who are having to sell cause their houses are being repossessed. No idea if that is the case wiht the house we are looking at, but possible. When I was on the website, an ad directed me to a website that specialises in repossessed homes cause you get a real bargain.

Nice.

Tewihara I agree. A manager in the public sector in say a council, or the NHS, wouldn't enjoy bonuses etc that you'd enjoy in the private sector. There's a vast difference between someone earning that, and, as you say, the superrich, who get to keep vast swathes of money due to keeping it in foreign banks etc.

Definitely not fair.

If the taxman gets x percent of my money, he should get x percent of eveyone who earns equal or more than me. Unfortunately he doesn't.

Then you end up with charitable celebs giving millions to charities, which is lovely, but what about the taxes that would keep our schools and NHS running?

Hello all

I have gone beyond frothing to lying catatonic on the floor in disbelief.

But

Wanted to say about HB.

The probs with HB stem from the lack of social housing and wanting private LLs to fill the shoes once all the housing was sold off. The point of this was to get rid of dull, difficult, unsexy, expensive old social housing, and shift all blame to private landlords AS WITH ALL PRIVATISED INDUSTRIES: oh dear oh dear there's nothing we can do about housing/energy companies etc because they are privately run.

In order to further shift all responsibility from the govt, they made the extremely stupid decision to set LHAs AND to pay rent direct to the tenant. This meant that of course all Lls went on line, foudn out the LHA and charged the maximum and also all tenants got and spent their rent...because if you were living on 10p and a cheque for £1000 came through the door - what would you do?

LHAs need to be set properly, rent needs ot be paid to the LL direct, social housing needs ot be built.

Did you know that when private companies build flats, hey have to build a proportion of social...but that can be anywhere in the country? So build ten snazzy apartments in Kensington, and fulfil your social bit with a couple of shit and bus ticket houses in Hull.

If you want to raise your blood pressure, have a listen to IDS on the Today programme this morning.

If you haven't got 13 minutes to spare or you are worried you might explode if you have to listen, apparently when organisations like Shelter talk about homelessness, they don't mean that people won't actually have anywhere to live, they mean that children will have to share a bedroom, rather than having one each which they can only do because their parents are scoring such huge amounts of HB and having more children so that they can carry on living in their mansions. He actually said that, I am not making it up

I'm afraid I was slightly tetchy while taking DS to school this morning

And the bishops are all liars.

Oh yes, them too. Actually everyone is lying. People on benefits live in luxury homes while 'hard working families' are forced to make their children sleep in bunkbeds

benefits cap thread? can someone help I'm tired, ill and getting muddled...

I can't. I've already called someone a wanker on another benefits thread.

what did the bishops say anyway Hully?

Here's the benefits caps thread. I am going to keep schtum on that one, I suspect I may say something worse than wanker.